Crime Time

Fla. honors student pistol-whips mom, demands sports car

A Florida teen bound for an Ivy League school was arrested after she allegedly forced her mother to co-sign for a car loan at gunpoint.

Naples Daily News reports that Rachel Hachero, 17, is accused of pistol-whipping her mother and forcing her to drive to a local dealership to buy a Nissan 350Z convertible.

Her mother initially refused to co-sign for the car when she threatened to kill her and later that day, returned home with a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun to prove her point.

She pistol-whipped her mother in the head and pointed the gun at her head and stomach and demanded that they drive to the dealership.

While Hachero was in school at the exclusive Canterbury School in Fort Myers, her mother rummaged through her bedroom and found the gun and some drugs.

Hachero was arrested and faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, unlawful possession of a firearm and battery.

Hachero's mother declined to prosecute because of her honor student status and acceptance into several Ivy League schools with scholarships.

-Chance Welch

Best-selling author takes mob death threat seriously

Was there a mob plot to kill best-selling author Roberto Saviano?

An Italian prosecutor investigating an alleged mob plot to kill Saviano, who wrote the crime expose "Gomorra," says the informant now denies having claimed there was a plot.

That doesn't assuage Saviano's concern, though. He says he's going to leave Italy for awhile and will go abroad.

"I want a life," Saviano wrote in the daily La Repubblica. "I didn't think that a book -- just a book -- could cause such an earthquake."

-- Lance Murray